Weed is in the air this May sweeps. Expect marijuana coverage from all major Denver TV news outlets.

Because Colorado is the center of the recreational pot universe, home to an historic shift not seen since Prohibition, because the sales and consumption of weed make for lively visuals, because the medical, legal, cultural and financial angles are abundant, and with a number of national networks and documentary crews swarming the story (not to mention The Denver Post’s website The Cannabist), it’s a natural. The depth of coverage, or lack thereof, will offer insight into each local news shop.

CBS4 is first in line, taking a look at edibles: today at 6 p.m. Alan Gionet reports on the science behind how THC from edibles is ingested. Tonight at 10 p.m., Rick Sallinger goes undercover “to learn what pot shops are really telling customers when they buy edibles and whether the information is accurate.” Then Friday at 10 p.m., Brian Maass wraps it up with a report on “what’s really inside edibles including sometimes harmful bacteria and pesticides.”

Susie Wargin, 9News weekday morning sports anchor since 2004, will leave the station when her contract expires in August. She’s getting out of the TV business to devote herself to real estate fulltime but will continue to freelance for 9News on occasion.

“I’ve had my real estate license since June,” Wargin said. “My mom’s been in the business for 38 years (with RE/MAX). It’s a good family decision for me now. Mom wants to hand down the business–(in the unspecified distant future)– and I’d be an idiot to refuse.”

Wargin said the Pro Challenge, which ends Aug. 24, will likely be her final assignment as a fulltime 9News staffer. She worked at KBPI and KOA before becoming getting the weekend prep sports job at KUSA. When Drew Soicher moved to nights, she got the morning gig in 2004.

Having been in local TV and radio for 21 years, she said, “I’m ready to move on.”

Denver’s CBS4 won three top Edward R. Murrow regional honors — for overall excellence, best breaking news and best newscast — the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) announced Tuesday.

The station’s work on the Colorado floods and the depth of coverage were cited in the overall excellence honor. The KCNC entry can be viewed here.

The first day flood coverage won for breaking news. See that entry here. And the CBS4 news at 10 p.m. from the first day of the flood was honored for best newscast. See it here.

The Murrow Awards recognize the best in broadcast journalism. The national awards will be announced in June. Last year, the Denver Post won three national Murrow awards and KUSA won best newscast nationally for coverage of the Aurora theater shootings and KXRM in Colorado Springs won for continuing coverage of the Waldo Canyon fire. The region covers Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.

In this year’s regional round, Denver’s 9News KUSA picked up four honors: for feature reporting, investigative reporting, hard news reporting and use of sound/video. 7News KMGH won for continuing coverage of the “Failing Parole System” and for its website.

Additionally, KOA Radio won the regional honor for overall excellence. Colorado Public Radio won for a documentary, “Remembering John Denver,” and for hard news reporting on how the flooding affected immigrants. Greeley’s KUNC won three: for smaller market radio feature, investigative reporting and hard news reporting.

Among smaller market stations, KKTV in Colorado Springs won for overall excellence, KXRM won for continuing coverage of the Black Forest fire, KRCC won for breaking coverage of the Manitou Springs flooding,

As expected, the 2014 Winter Olympics telecasts from Sochi swept 9News to a Feb. ratings win.

Denver took silver for Olympics viewing: Denver was the second highest-rated metered market in the country, behind only Minneapolis. On KUSA, the primetime average for 18 nights of coverage from Sochi was a 11.3 rating, 30 share (adults 25-54). That's significantly below the results from the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, a 14.4 rating, 34 share. Sad to say, the lack of American medals likely contributed to the overall decline in viewer interest compared to previous Games. Also, the nine hour delay didn't help (unlike Vancouver).

Assessing February's local late news race is not really fair to anyone. It was apples-to-oranges most nights, since the 9News newscasts ran late due to Olympics coverage. But on the five nights when the competition was head-to-head, 9News scored a 7.3 rating and 22 share compared to KMGH's 1.6 rating, 5 share and KCNC's 1.4 rating, 4 share.

For the debut of Jimmy Fallon's "The Tonight Show," Denver was the No. 1 LPM. Once the games ended, when Fallon moved into his regular 10:35 p.m. time slot, the new "Tonight Show" (3.6 rating) posted a 112% increase year-to-year over Jay Leno's, easily besting David Letterman (.8 rating) and Jimmy Kimmel (.6 rating) combined. Fallon can be expected to do well here, due to the earlier start in this time zone.

Beyond the saturation coverage across the Comcast-NBC platforms, the efforts by KUSA staff were significant. The feature stories by native-speaking Anastasiya Bolton, the on-site reporting on athletes and issues by Cheryl Preheim and Matt Renoux, and the after-show “Olympic Zone” coverage, spotlighting Colorado athletes, were polished and steady, even as the network went through Olympic gyrations with Bob Costas in and out of sick bay.

Amelia Earhart, Channel 9 traffic reporter and pilot, is leaving KUSA when her contract is up in April to devote herself to aviation. She made the announcement on her Facebook page.

“It was good timing ahead of the around-the-world flight,” she said Monday. She’ll be on the air until mid-April. The flight, about 100 hours over 14-17 days, is slated for June, depending on weather. Her Channel 9 managers “made it clear fill-in options are open” and 9News will be covering the flight. “We are going to livestream from the cockpit, do interviews from the plane,” Earhart said, noting she’ll be the youngest woman to fly a single-engine around the world as she retraces the route of her hero.

“Now through June, my focus will be on flight training, planning, and preparation for the around the world flight. Beyond the global adventure, I have several opportunities to promote aviation, aerospace and the pursuit of passion and adventure,” she wrote on Facebook.

Will Ripley, 32, a 9News investigative reporter for the last three years, is jumping to a plum assignment as CNN’s Tokyo correspondent effective March 8.

Feb. 20 is his last day at 9News. He’ll spend a week with CNN in New York, a week at headquarters in Atlanta, then off to his new life. He’s working on his Japanese.

“I got Rosetta Stone Japanese and have been studying morning and evening,” he said. “I’ll have a tutor in the bureau and will be working with native speakers, some of whom have been with CNN for 20 years.”

The hire has been in the works the last few months. He’ll join a three-person staff in the heart of Tokyo — a senior producer, bureau manager and photographer. “I’ve been Skyping with them,” he said. He’ll have an apartment a five-minute walk away.

They’re brainstorming ideas about U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, the Fukushima nuclear plant and the aftermath of earthquake, so he can “hit the ground running.”

Ripley has spent 15 years in local TV news. He joined KUSA from KRGV in South Texas in 2011 where he picked up Spanish and did enough border and South American coverage (on cartels, gang problems, etc.) to serve as international reporting experience. Before that he worked for smaller stations in Missouri. His dream since watching Christiane Amanpour as a kid was to be a foreign correspondent.

Whether or not they contractually have access to players, whether or not they can legally show game footage, whether or not they are allowed inside the locker room, Denver TV stations will ride the Broncos to what they hope will be extra ratings and revenue this week. (At least they’ll cash in on the mania rather than seem lacking in team spirit.)

Sunday’s AFC title game telecast, the Broncos playing the New England Patriots on home turf at 1 p.m. on CBS4, will be surrounded by “specials” over the next several days. Expect lots of live coverage from the stadium starting Friday morning.

Channel 4 plans a preview show 6:30-7 p.m. Saturday and network and local specials Sunday morning leading in to the NFL show at noon, and the Broncos-Patriots telecast. After the game, 4:30-6 p.m., CBS4 will pre-empt the “CBS Evening News” for an extended local newscast. And there’s more after the late news, with a local 10:35-11:07 p.m. sports show.

9News has an edition of “Broncos Huddle” Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. and an hour-long Broncos special Saturday at 8 p.m. “Game Day Live” will broadcast at 9 a.m. Sunday from inside the stadium. Because 9News is the Broncos official partner, “we will be the only shows broadcast live inside the stadium,” said news boss Patti Dennis.

7News will air a special “John Fox Show” on Friday at 6:30 p.m. Looking ahead, news chief Jeff Harris said the station is “finalizing plans for two daily additional half-hour shows around the Super Bowl run,” one in the morning, one in the evening in the week leading to the Super Bowl.

KDVR-KWGN have been running two half-hour specials, 6-6:30 p.m. on Fox31 and 7:30-8 on Channel 2, every night this week. “We are in Super Bowl planning mode,” according to News Director Ed Kosowski. In the event of a win Sunday, those nightly specials would continue the week of Jan. 27, leading up to the Feb. 2 Super Bowl telecast on Fox.

And what does CBS4 say about all the supposedly special programming surrounding Sunday’s championship game, to which only they own broadcast rights? “The ratings really speak for themselves. The largest audience by far is during the game. Shows surrounding the game garner the next largest audience and everything else drops off dramatically from there,” per CBS4 General Manager Walt DeHaven.

KTVD, the Gannett sibling of KUSA 9News that once was an overflow channel for election nights and a space holder for the future, is now No. 1 at 9 p.m. The 9News newscast on KTVD beat the newscast on KDVR Fox31 for the first time in October in both households and the key news demographic (adults 25-54). KTVD had help from Fox’s Major League Baseball overruns, which meant the KDVR news ran late during much of the month, but the milestone is still noteworthy.

KDVR-KWGN have been undergoing staff turnover and are operating with smaller than usual staffs. At the start of the November sweeps, when local ratings are measured to set ad rates for the future, the stations face an uphill climb.

Allan Bisset, a 42-year veteran of KCNC (longer than any other current staffer), who originally ran the station’s Motion Picture Film Laboratory, processing 1.5 million feet of film a year. He’s been a photojournalist since 1977 and is, according to Channel 4, “the photographer the assignment desk wants to clone.”

Jack Carver, who was a camera operator on KLZ-TV’s first day on the air in 1953, who was producer-director for the Sheriff Scotty Show and director of the first NFL game played and televised in Colorado.

Noell Custer, creator and star of the long-running kids show, “The Noell and Andy Show,” on KLZ. She also wrote and produced 65 Colorado History features, “Centennial Colorado,” now part of the Denver Public Library’s Westery History Collection.

Morey DaVolt, who put radio stations on the air in Lakewood, Estes Park and Castle Rock. He also brought full-time country-western programming to the state’s airwaves.

Bill Pierson, who joined KFKA Greeley in 1948 as a staff announcer, later at KVOD. He put KBPI (Bill Pierson Inc.) on the air in 1965. He was a public affairs show host on KOA in the 1980s and on KRMA for 20+ years.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.